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The following article was taken from Vol 3 # 2 newsletter of Vitamin
Research Products and may be freely distributed in whole or part.
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Get Lean Without Getting Hungry
By Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw
Too much body fat is the bane of competitive body builders. You can have
terrific muscles, but if they are buried under too much subcutaneous (below
the skin) fat, you look smooth and you lose.
Too much fat is ugly, and it can kill you, too.
Most scientists studying obesity say that 20% or more above the "ideal"
weight puts a male at medical risk for increased risks of cardiovascular
disease, cancer, and perhaps other diseases such as diabetes. Stored body
fats are susceptible to oxidation (in contact with oxygen and other
substances with similar chemical effects) that cause them to become rancid
or, technically, peroxidized. These rancid fats are carcinogenic (can
cause cancer), mutagenic (can damage DNA, your body's blueprints),
thrombogenic (can cause abnormal blood clots leading to heart attacks or
strokes), and are immune suppressors (reduce the effectiveness of your
immune system which defends you against bacteria, viruses, and cancer).
It is more than a coincidence that the frequency of these illnesses increases
rapidly with both increasing obesity and advancing age.
Free Radicals and Aging
When the fats are oxidized, a lot of free radicals are created. Indeed, fats
are the number one target for free radical damage in your body because when a
free radical attacks fat, it can cause a chain reaction which creates
hundreds, thousands, or even millions of additional damaging free radicals.
You will be hearing a lot about free radicals in the next few years! Free
radicals are promiscuously chemically reactive entities that are usually
controlled in your body, but when they get out of control they can do a lot
of damage. If you got a lethal dose of X-rays, it would be the free radicals
created by the X-rays that would actually kill you. One well supported major
theory of aging, the free radical theory of aging, states that over a
lifetime, accumulated unrepaired damage by free radicals causes much of the
deterioration that we recognize as aging.
Experimental animals that have had their lives extended have much leaner
bodies than their littermates that don't live so long. This "leaner is
longer" is true whether the animals' lives were extended by calorie
restriction or by supplementation with antioxidants that control free
radicals such as the food preservative BHT, or the free radical-controlling
nutrients vitamin E, vitamin B-5, and the nutrient amino acid cysteine.
Body Fat is Nature's Ice Age Life Insurance!
Back in the bad old days (not so long ago!), almost everyone died young -
generally in their twenties or thirties, if not earlier. Few people lived
long enough to die of obesity-related cardiovascular disease and cancer,
while millions died of starvation. Modern agricultural technology has
brought us a cornucopia of food, but our genes are still programmed for a
time when famine, not fat, was our greatest danger.
Because of this, the body often holds on tenaciously to that warm body fat
security blanket, especially in those who have inherited "fat" genes (body
build has been proven to be inherited) making it an especially difficult
job to get the fat off and, particularly, to KEEP it off. A Scandinavian
study of twins separated at birth by adoption showed that genetics is
responsible for at least 85% of whether one has a lean, medium, or fat build.
The home environment of the adopting parents was not provably responsible
for even a part of their adoptees' body build, though there might have been
minor effects too small to detect.
Another scientific study has shown that 95% of the people who lose weight
on a calorie restricted diet regain every pound of it within one year! That
5% success rate is worse than the cure rate for terminal cancer, but the diet
quacks keep telling people to count their calories and go hungry. There are
a lot of things that the diet quacks don't tell you, too. They don't tell
you that if you use their caloric restriction techniques, that you will have
to go hungry for the rest of your life, or the fat comes right back. They
don't tell you that caloric restriction can make the hunger and weight
controlling hypothalmus gland in your brain think that there is a famine, and
consequently change your body's biochemistry to make it more efficient,
causing a weight plateau even if you are on a potentially dangerous
starvation diet. They don't tell you that caloric restriction actually shuts
off your most efficient body fat reduction mechanism. And they don't tell
you that losing weight and then regaining it is much worse than futile!
Weight Loss Versus Fat Loss
Most of you probably know that losing weight is not the same as losing fat.
But you may not know that on a low calorie diet, if it is not accompanied
by very heavy exercise, 25% of the weight you lose will be lean body mass,
not fat! Even if you do very heavy exercise, there will still be a lean body
mass loss of about 5%. The weight that you regain after you stop dieting is
almost entirely fat, however. If you frequently cycle between eating as
normal and eating a low-calorie diet, you can actually end up with less
muscle mass than when you started, though your weight will not show it. Your
body fat percentage measurements and your contest results will certainly
show it, however. For that reason, we do not recommend a low calorie diet
as a way to lose body fat. Morever, remember that 95% of people who lose
weight on a low-calorie diet regain all of it within a year! Restricting
one's food intake by willpower is a very unnatural way to lose body fat, with
delicious and fattening foods all around and readily available.
We recommend methods that use natural body mechanisms of fat control, not
unnatural self-starvation willpower. If our ice age ancestors had been
willing to go hungry when they could get food, the human species would be
extinct.
New scientific research findings in recent years have uncovered natural body
mechanisms for getting rid of body fat that work WITH your body, rather than
against it, making the job of getting fat off and keeping it off relatively
easy. These techniques do not require your going on a low calorie diet, being
hungry, or doing any extra work.
Perhaps the most important of all to the dedicated body builder, they cause
no loss of lean body mass, they do not require drug use, nearly all are IFBB,
AAU, and Olympic legal, and they are completely natural.
The Glycemic Index: A Key Concept for Fat, Hunger, and Energy Control
A popular magazine recently stated that the calories from table sugar were
more likely to fatten you than the calories from a potato because the potato
contains a lot of complex carbohydrates that your body has to break down. But
they were wrong! In fact, the calories from a potato are more likely to fatten
you than the calories from pure table sugar! Why? Because of something
discovered just within the past few years called the glycemic index(1).
It has become a well established theory among scientists studying obesity
that the ratio of the hormone insulin (released in response to increases in
blood sugar) to that of growth hormone (a natural anabolic non-steroid
hormone that stimulates muscle building and fat burning) plays a mojor role
in controlling your body ratio of fat to muscle. Insulin is a necessary
hormone without which body cells could not burn the glucose or blood sugar
circulating in the bloodstream for energy. However, too much insulin results
in the conversion of any excess glucose in the bloodstream to stored fat.
Remember, stored fat is your life insurance policy against famine. Your
genes don't realize that you are living in the 20th century in America and
have more than enough food to survive. Your body, especially after young
adulthood, still tends to accumulate stores of fat to use in a food shortage
"emergency".
Recent research also indicates that individuals who secrete extra large
amounts of insulin in response to carbohydrates are at extra risk for
cardiovascular disease. Thus, it is good for nondiabetics, as well as
diabetics, to keep blood glucose -- and insulin levels -- under control.
All Carbohydrates are not Created Equal
This brings us to the glycemic index. Most carbohydrates (sugars and starchy
foods) increase blood levels of glucose by being broken down into sugars in
the digestive tract and absorbed. But there is a big difference in how much
particular carbohydrates increase blood sugar and how fast they do it.
Scientists studying this (so they could advise diabetics what they should and
should not eat) found a very surprising thing: some complex carbohydrates
(like potato) increased blood sugar levels more than simple sugars like
sucrose (the table sugar found in candy bars, etc.) They devised a way of
comparing different carbohydrates called the glycemic index.
The glycemic index of a particular food is the ratio of how much a certain
quantity of that food increased blood sugar divided by how much that same
quantity of glucose increased blood sugar, then multiplying this ratio by
100. So, a glycemic index of 100 meant that the food increased blood sugar
as much as glucose; numbers higher represent foods that increase blood sugar
more than glucose while numbers lower represent foods that increase blood
sugar less than glucose.(1)
Using the glycemic index gives you a real insight into the physiological
effects of the foods you eat. Table sugar (sucrose) has a glycemic index of
59, while the natural fruit sugar fructose has a glycemic index of only 20.
Honey has a whopping glycemic index of 87 and whole wheat bread's glycemic
index is 72, higher than (yetch) white bread (69), and much higher than pure
table sugar (50)! On the other hand, a whole grain rye bread has a glycemic
index of only 42.
Most corn and wheat products have a much higher glycemic index than rye or
oat products. This why corn and wheat, not oats and rye, are used in cattle
fattening feed lots. When the sedentary cattle eat the corn and wheat, a lot
of insulin is released, causing the blood sugar made from the ingested
carbohydrates to rapidly enter the cattle's fat storage cells and get
converted to stored body fat. This huge insulin release drives so much blood
sugar into the cattle's fat storage cells that their blood sugar drops below
normal, making them crave more carbohydrates, which starts the whole
hunger-feeding-fattening cycle over again. You can help avoid fattening
yourself up like feedlot cattle by watching the glycemic index of what you
eat.
Not all corn and wheat products have high glycemic indices, however. Pasta,
in general, has a low glycemic index - even if made from corn or wheat flour.
This may be the scientific reason that pasta is so important in the Pritikin
weight loss program.
Do you have to give up eating sweets? Not at all! You can eat delicious
sweet desserts and snacks sweetened with fructose, which has the lowest
glycemic index of all carbohydrates tested, 20.
You can get fructose in health food stores and in the diabetic section of
large supermarkets, where it is sold mainly to diabetics who use it instead
of regular sucrose on the advice of their physicians. You can also find jams
that are made with fructose there. Under the cold acid conditions found in a
citrus energy drink, fructose is actually 70% sweeter calorie per calorie
than sucrose.
Losing Fat and Putting on Muscle while Pigging out on Ice Cream!
Ice cream, even sweetened with table sugar, sucrose, has a glycemic index of
only 36 (probably due to the emulsion structure of the ice cream slowing
absorption of the sugar), compared to 32 for skimmed milk. Indeed, a home
made ice cream using fructose instead of sucrose has a glycemic index too
low to measure! It causes no significant measurable blood sugar increase,
and can even be eaten by many diabetic patients.
One body builder saw Durk talking about ice cream, glycemic indices, and body
fat on one of Durk's 30 or so appearances on the Merv Griffin show. He
thought that the whole idea was crazy, and set out to prove it by eating two
to three pints of ice cream per day in addition to his regular diet! He also
used the nutrient human growth hormone releasers that Durk had discussed.
(An upcoming issue of Durk and Sandy's newsletter will feature an article on
GH releasers and how to use them.) In ten weeks of ice cream piggery, he
lost 3 1/2" from his waist and added 1" to his chest! His weight loss was
6 1/2 pounds, but since he put on muscle while losing fat, his fat loss was
substantially greater than his weight loss. Compare that to going hungry on
a calorically restricted diet where you lose muscle along with the fat! (See
our Life Extension Weight Loss Program for more details of this case history,
and for the limits to validity of any case history type study. Case
histories, unlike scientific animal experiments and double-blind placebo
controlled experiments on humans can never prove anything, but they sometimes
provide interesting research leads.)
Eating a Meal of Mixed Foods
When eating a combined meal, the effects of the glycemic index are attenuated.
A high glycemic index food will generally be less effective at increasing
blood sugar levels when mixed with other food, especially when there is a lot
of soluble fiber or fat in the other foods. Thus, the glycemic index can be
used most effectively to compare individual food items, such as snacks, or
athletic carbohydrate preloads.
IMPORTANT SAFETY NOTE
Consumption of large amounts of fructose can have serious adverse
cardiovascular effects if you are copper deficient, and according to U.S.
Department of Agriculture scientists, about half of all Americans are copper
deficient. Play it safe; take a mineral supplement of the FDA's Recommended
Daily Allowance of copper, 2 milligrams per day, preferably in chelated form.
Thermogenesis, the Cool Way to Lose Fat -- and Only Fat!
Your body has a major means of getting rid of extra fat that was just
discovered within the past few years called thermogenesis. You have small
deposits of a special fat in your body that are called brown fat because,
compared to ordinary fat (a whitish color), they look brown. This brown fat
has evolved to perform one special task: it burns regular white stored body
fat to create heat which can keep your body warm. These thermogenic (heat
generating) brown fat deposits are activated by cold, eating certain types
of food, by sustained, heavy exercise, and other stimuli. Even though these
brown fat deposits amount to only about 1% of your body fat, they can have an
amazing effect on your body fat percentage because, when activated, they can
burn their own weight in white fat every twelve hours!
Thermogenesis Versus Exercise for Fat Loss
Amazingly, exposure to cold is a more effective way to lose excess body fat
than is heavy exercise. Experimental animals exposed to moderate cold and
allowed to eat all they wanted actually ate more food than exercised animals
but lost more body fat! It is not necessary to be shivering cold to take
advantage of this body fat loss mechanism, however. In ordinary street
clothes, thermogenesis turns on at about 72 degrees F, not an uncomfortable
temperature. If you wear less, thermogenesis turns on at even higher
temperatures, typically between 82 and 86 degrees F for someone nude or
wearing shorts. You can use this technique for fat loss without dietary
change or even exercise by turning down your thermostat in cool weather one
degree Fahrenheit each week (or setting your air conditioner down one degree
Fahrenheit each week) which will cause you to become thermogenically
activated and cold adapted. Visitors may find your home somewhat chilly, but
you won't! And they will be amazed at how much you eat and yet remain lean!
This effect is worth about 25 pounds of fat loss per year for someone
starting from a normal body fat percentage, and, unlike caloric restriction,
becomes more - not less - effective as you lose more body fat.
How a Three Piece Suit Can Help Make You Fat and How Body Builder's Posing
Briefs Can Help Make You Lean
The type of clothes that you wear can help make you either fat or lean! The
calorie content of a food is simply a measure of the heat energy released when
you burn the food in your body, just like heat calories are released when you
burn a log in your fireplace. If your house has little insulation and lots
of drafty heat leaks, you will have to burn a lot more logs - a lot more
calories - to keep your home warm. This is also true for clothes. Clothes
that keep heat in, keep calories in, so that more calories can be stored as
body fat. Clothes that let heat out let calories out, too. The difference
between a three piece wool worsted suit and an equally socially acceptable
tropical weight suit can be up to about 25 pounds of body fat per year.
Exercise in which body temperature is not allowed to rise is another way to
stimulate thermogenesis, since your brown fat must keep burning off white fat
to maintain your body temperature. Swimming is ideal, since you are able to
do the heavy, sustained type of exercise that produces the most benefits,
including cardiovascular conditioning, without increasing your body
temperature (which inhibits thermogenesis). Or, if you prefer weightlifting,
which is better for muscle building because it is a peak output form of
exercise, you can use a fan to air condition your body as you exercise. Use
a variable speed fan to blow the hot air away, and further cool you by
evaporating your sweat, thereby allowing your body to remain cool, which
stimulates thermogenesis.
The last thing you want to do is work out in a sweat suit, which keeps in your
body heat, depressing your brown fat thermogenesis. What you lose with a
sweat suit is nearly all sweat (water and salts), not fat. Think cool! You
can lose more body fat by driving around in an air conditioned Cadillac with
nothing on but your jogging briefs than you can struggling along jogging in
a sweat suit! Why work so hard to defeat your most important fat loss
mechanism!
Certain foods enhance your brown fat's thermogenic activity, too. A low
carbohydrate diet is a real turnoff to thermogenesis, as carbohydrates
stimulate thermogenesis. However, not all carbohydrates are equally
effective in doing this. The natural fruit sugar in fructose is about twice
as good in stimulating thermogenesis as is regular table sugar, sucrose, yet
it only releases about 1/3 as much insulin, the fat storing hormone.
Have you ever eaten a big meal, then awakened in the middle of the night with
the back of your neck covered with sweat? You were experiencing diet induced
thermogenesis; your biggest deposits of brown fat are at the back of your
neck.
A very low fat diet also reduces thermogenesis. Experimental animals fed the
typical high fat American diet and exposed to cold ended up with less body
fat than animals fed low fat diets! Recent studies indicate that about 30%
of one's calories should be fat, that 40% (about the typical American diet)
is too high and that 20% is too low. See our Life Extension Weight Loss
Program(2) for information on special fats called MCTs (medium chain
triglycerides) that strongly stimulate thermogenesis, cannot be stored as
body fat, and even make you burn regular body fat.
Even during AAU and Olympic competition, though, you can use a supplement
containing the essential amino acid nutrient L-phenylalinine, along with
vitamin and mineral co-factors required for your body to convert it to
noradrenaline, the brain's version of adrenaline, which gives you the
sustained drive you need in any competitive situation. Try a formulation
that contains fructose and other nutritional cofactors such as our RISE &
SHINE (tm).
Just how thermogenic is fat loss? Normal laboratory rodents will have body
fat percentages from about 15% to about 18% when eating all the lab chow that
they want. If you give them an unlimited supply of a wide variety of human
junk foods, they really fatten up, eating 50% or so additional calories, and
going to about 50% to 80% body fat. If you allow them to continue to eat all
the junk food they desire, but apply thermogenic techniques, they will eat
even more junk food, but their body fat percentages will fall to the 4% to
7% range!
Just as there are natural body mechanisms for storing up body fat (nature's
insurance policy against a famine), there are also natural mechanisms for
getting rid of fat (such as using it as a source of energy when it is cold).
Rather than fight your body's fat storage mechanisms, stimulate those that
cause your body to eliminate body fat, which is a lot easier on you and a lot
more effective, too! Understanding the mechanisms by which your body works
is always the best way to get what you want from it.
Live long & stay strong,
Durk Pearson & Sandy Shaw
1) See our article on this subject "Inside Sugar" in the June 1987 issue of
Joe Weider's Sports Fitness which includes a glycemic index of many different
foods. This article tells you how to select the right type of carbohydrates
for training and for performance (they are not necessarily the same), and how
to use the glycemic index to avoid many common foods which make you hungrier
for more carbohydrates than if you hadn't eaten anything at all!
2) There is no way to condense the contents of a 365 page book into a 4100
word article. For example, we haven't even touched on the use of "Designer
Food(tm)" nutrient supplements that control hunger with 90% to 95% fewer
calories than regular foods. For our full approach to natural fat loss,
including 17 different methods which do not involve dieting, hunger or extra
exercise, and which cites 386 references to the published scientific
literature, see our Life Extension Weight Loss Program, now available
everywhere in paperback, published by Doubleday Book Co. We really wanted
to call it Scientifically Remodeling Your Body, or at least The Life
Extension Fat Loss Program, but Doubleday wanted the title to make our book
look like a competitor with diet books.
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You can read much more by these two scientists about their latest work in the
monthly eight page per issue Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw's Life Extension
Newsletter which is available from VRP for $29.95 for a one year charter
subscription starting from the first issue. Just like the Wall St Journal,
your money will be refunded for unsent issues if you are not completely
satisfied.
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Vitamin Research Products' address is: 2044 Old Middlefield Way,
Mountain View, CA 94043